[TUHS] Unix 4.0?

[Arnold Robbins via TUHS]

Hi Warren,

Warren Toomey via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> Strangely, I was just browsing through the Unix Archive here and came
> cross https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/Manuals/Unix_4.0/
>
> For those looking for a reference guide, there is one here which is a
> flip book with six holes for binding at the top. It names itself
> "UNIX Reference Guide Release 4.0" and is dated April 1981.
>
> So this isn't 4th Edition :-) Is this release 4.0 of the reference
> guide, or does the 4.0 refer the version of Unix. I'm confused!
>
> Cheers, Warren

It refers to Unix 4.0. This version was between System III and System V
and wasn't released externally.

I've told this story before, but I guess telling it again once every
few years doesn't hurt. ;-)

In 1981 I did some contract C programming at Southern Bell on a PDP-11/70
running Unix 4.0; that scan is from my copy. The other Unix 4.0 docs
are from photocopies I made of the docs over the course of that summer.

When I asked about the difference between System III and Unix 4.0, I was
told that AT&T publicly released one version behind what they were
running internally.  With System V, they decided to change that policy,
which is why there never was a System IV.

They did not do a separate Reference Manual (Sections 1-8) for Unix 4.0;
they gave me the manual for Unix 3.0 (comb bound) and there was a
doc that summarized the differences.  One of the things that still sticks
out in my mind is the statement

	The "destroy your input file" feature of sort is now gone.

Apparently, if you had done

	sort -o file-x file-x file-y file-z

sort would have opened and truncated file-x for output before opening
it for input. Ooops! :-)

HTH,

Arnold